as soon as I can, and we’ll go get married.”
“This is my world and welcome to it,” Ann muttered, watching through the window as Nick crossed the bare ground between the house and the barn.
Pushing the offending plate of food away from her, she reached for her coffee. At least her life here wasn’t going to be dull. She grinned as she remembered Snake’s outraged face when she’d called him a misogynist.
In fact, there was a great deal of scope for her here, she thought, bolstering her sagging resolve. The whole house was in desperate need of renovation and so was Nick’s diet. Those were things she could do. Maybe if she focused on what she could do, Nick wouldn’t notice what she couldn’t do.
Ann jumped as the pencil she held clenched in her fingers suddenly snapped with a loud crack that echoed through the silent kitchen. Blankly, she stared down at the pieces for a startled moment and then impatiently shoved them aside.
Relax, she ordered her tense muscles, but her muscles didn’t respond. She felt as if she’d been wound too tightly. As if she might shatter into pieces like the pencil at any second. Her disconnected thoughts seemed to scurry around her mind like mice on a treadmill, going nowhere and solving nothing.
What was she doing here? She looked around the dilapidated kitchen with a sense of unreality. This wasn’t her environment. She’d spent her whole life in New York City. She didn’t know anything about the West or ranching. Or men like Nick St. Hilarion. She must have been crazy to have thought that she could make this work. Mail-order brides were a thing of the past. They had no place in modern society.
Ann shot to her feet, propelled by her fears, which had been steadily growing ever since Nick had left. She had to get out of here before it was too late. Before she made a terrible mistake. She had to—
“Nick said ta tell ya he’s almost done within the stock.”
“Done with the stock?” Ann parroted, taken off guard by Snake’s sudden appearance at the back door.
“That’s what I said. Nick said ta be ready ta go get hitched,” Snake said belligerently.
“But…” Ann began, only to find herself talking to empty air.
“And that’s another thing,” she muttered as honest indignation began to nudge aside her corroding fears. “That refugee from a bad spaghetti Western treats me like I had a highly contagious disease.” She grimaced as she heard the peevish note in her voice. What did it matter if she couldn’t get along with Snake? What mattered was whether or not she could get along with Snake’s boss.
Ann walked over to the window and stared outside into the blinding sunlight as she tried to think. Her reasons for accepting Nick hadn’t changed. She would be getting a career that appealed to her and one that she had a definite talent for—homemaking—and, hopefully, she would find companionship with Nick. A sense of belonging.
Taking a deep, steadying breath, she willed her racing heart to slow down. If her reasons for marrying Nick hadn’t changed, then why was she indulging in hysterical doubts? She tried to follow her chaotic emotions through to their inception. It wasn’t the state of his house, appalling as it was. Nor was it his surly hired hand. The cause of her uncertainty was Nick himself. She squarely faced this fact. He was not at all what she had expected.
Instead of a quiet, retiring specimen of manhood, she had found someone who looked like the embodiment of an adolescent romantic fantasy. What was worse, it was a romantic fantasy that touched something deep inside her. Something she hadn’t even been aware had existed. And that was on their first meeting. What would she feel like after a few weeks?
She didn’t know. Possibly her initial attraction would fade beneath the demands of daily living. Or it might mellow out into something more comfortable.
And Nick had no idea how he’d impacted on her emotions, she mused, soothing her frayed nerves. Nor was she some overeager adolescent who couldn’t control her own reactions. If she didn’t act on her impulses, they’d remain just thoughts, known only to her.
Ann pressed her lips together in unconscious determination. There were no guarantees, but she had a decent shot at making this marriage work. Mainly because Nick was as committed to its success as she was. She took a deep, calming breath. She’d marry Nick and she’d build a solid relationship that would be a comfort to both of them, she vowed as she headed upstairs to change into the cream wool suit she’d bought because it had looked vaguely bridal without being fussy.
To her surprise and slight hurt, when she came back downstairs she found that Nick hadn’t bothered to change. Telling herself that their marriage wouldn’t be any more valid if he were wearing a suit, Ann climbed into the cab of the truck.
Her sense of purpose held through the trip to town despite Nick’s monosyllabic answers to her few tentative stabs at conversation. Knowing that he was probably worried about the cow who had had the calf early, she refused to allow her sense of unease to grow. If Nick had changed his mind about marrying her, all he had to do was say so-much as Snake was doing in the jump seat of the truck, Ann thought wryly as she listened to his mutters about one more good man biting the dust.
“If you feel that way, why are you coming to the wedding?” Ann finally asked.
“I’s hopin’ he’ll change his mind,” Snake shot back.
“I’m not going to change my mind, Snake.” Nick’s voice sounded loud and overly emphatic in the close confines of the truck. Who was he trying so hard to convince? Ann wondered. Her? Snake? Or maybe himself?
“Jake’s Market is down that street.” Nick pointed to his left as they entered the tiny town. “He delivers. Just call and tell him what you want.”
A large dose of self-confidence would be nice, Ann thought ruefully.
“Aren’t we going to the courthouse?” she asked as they passed the red brick building with its identifying sign in front.
“Should be,” Snake muttered. “Marriage should be a crime.”
“No.” Nick ignored Snake, and Ann gamely followed his lead, although her growing impulse was to say something rude. Very rude. “Judge Adams is recovering from a heart attack, and he’s at home so his wife can keep an eye on him.”
Nick pulled up in front of a neat, two-story white clapboard house and cut the engine.
“This is it,” Nick said baldly.
“The end of the line,” Snake agreed somberly.
“Change is the essence of the human condition,” Ann offered, as much to encourage herself as to rebuke Snake. Scrambling out of the car, she nervously brushed the front of her suit, checking to make sure it was still spotless. She took a deep breath, clutched her best Italian leather purse in her icy fingers and fell into step beside Nick as he mounted the porch steps.
Nick paused at the top and turned to look for Snake. He was standing by the car, drinking from a flask he’d pulled out of his back pocket.
“Need a snootful of whiskey ta face up ta
